![]() Snow´s 1959 work Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution. literature) conflict to the Einstein–Bergson (physics vs. In the first chapter, Lowenthal recounts the history of this cultural division from the Huxley–Arnold (science vs. ![]() The humanities, in contrast, emphasize the role of subjective experience, promoting multi-layered explanations of reality, and criticizing what many see as a disenchantment and soullessness that science has brought upon the natural world. The natural sciences model the world through the language of mathematics, of “objectiveness” and logical coherence, seeking an ultimate answer or “theory of everything” that could explain worldly phenomena. Is unifying knowledge achievable? Is it desirable? Answering these questions had been the central theme in the divide between the “Two Cultures,” namely the natural sciences and humanities. This is the underlying idea through which David Lowenthal explores major themes of pressing social and environmental relevance in Western thinking in his Quest for the Unity of the Knowledge, his last work published before his death in 2018. Diversity is lauded by those who commend difference and variety as life-enhancing” (p. Unity is the goal of those who seek a single all-encompassing explanation of everything. One posits the overarching unity of knowledge, the other cherishes its multifarious diversity. “Two modes of understanding dominate the history of ideas.
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